Karen Pooley is the director of the Environmental Policy Graduate Program, a professor of practice in Political Science, a member of Lehigh's Environmental Initiative, co-chair of the Lehigh Sustainability Council, and an active member of the Bethlehem community and an advocate for the Southside Community. Two projects that Karen will be looking closely at this semester and some to follow include the construction and opening of the Riverport Market and working on making the intersection at 3rd and Adams safer for the community.
Question 1: What is the Riverport Market going to be?
They are putting together a public market where the old Starter's Pub used to be in the Riverport building on 2nd Street. It will be a public market, that hosts special events and cooking classes. You can learn more at riverportmkt.com.
Question 2: What is your role in the planning of the Riverport Market?
A couple of my classes, including my Food Justice class, are using the new market to address food injustice in South Bethlehem and how this new market will affect the ability to purchase new, affordable, and fress food. We are also assessing how easy it will be to access this market, such as crossing streets and walkability. I have connected students to Ashley Development Corporation to help with planning, sit in meetings, to help cheer on the process, and share ideas with those who are in charge of the development. I connected students mostly who wanted to work on the project since I have previously worked with the company.
Question 3: Can you give us any information on when exactly the Riverport Market will be open and what vendors will be at the market?
The market was originally opening in March, but has been pushed to next fall. As students come back in the fall of 2020, hopefully it will be up and running. Ashley Development Corportation is well into conversations with vendors and is always open for ideas from students, but reconstruction is still needed inside where Starter's Pub used to be.
Question 4: What is your involvement with Ashley Development Corporation?
I have worked on previous projects wth them and am in contact with them constantly about the upcoming market. There is a Lehigh alumni who works for Ashley Development who I stay in contact with too, and connect students with for internships, shadowing, or sitting in on meetings.
Question 5: What other projects are you working on right now or coming up?
The first one is the city has already approved that the intersection at 3rd and Adams, which has no stop sign, stop light, or crosswalk needs to be made safer. The crosswalk right now is "fair game" for Lehigh students to decorate a mural on the street to make it clear for drivers to drive safe and for pedestrians to stand on the corner, just to make it safer yet pretty. Also, one of my classes that runs in the fall is always looking at ways to make the Southside more walkable. One idea proposed this past fall was working on better access to the river which would have huge sustainability and conservation issues involed. Lastly, I am still working with students on parklets which are closed for the winter. The parklet at Joe's Tavern on Broad Street will definitely be reopening as we are pretty sure the one at Roasted will be reopening as well.
Karen hopes to continue to have her students help with these local projects and continue on a larger scale to improvements being made to the Southside and other areas of the Lehigh Valley. She also hopes that the public market will help bridge the disconnect between the Southside community and the Lehigh community.